Raghubir Singh Boeken

Raghubir Singh (1942-99) was one of the twentieth century's finest documentary photographers. Born in Rajasthan, India, he won an international reputation, publishing over a dozen books, all on various aspects of his homeland. A Way Into India was his last great photographic project and is a testament to his love affair with the sights, sounds and colours of India, but also with one of its most unexpected icons - the Ambassador car. Continuously in production in India since 1957, the Ambassador is everywhere to be seen, in all possible guises - from delivery van to diplomatic limousine - and has become quintessentially Indian. Travelling back and forth across the country, Singh reveals India through the windows of the Ambassador. Temples and tourists, monsoon rains, paddy fields, tea plantations and elephants are dramatically framed by the Ambassador's distinctive curves. The old and the new sit side by side, as Singh and the Ambassador show us a way into India.

India is not simply a place; it is an experience. And the Ganges is not just a river: it is an aspect of the Divine. This is Raghubir Singh's personal pilgrimage along the Ganges: from the Himalayas, where the river rises among snows, through the villages of the Gangetic Plain, past Banaras and through Bihar, to the Bay of Bengal, between India and Bangladesh. On the way he captures the essence of the river's many different stages and moods, its strange and stunning beauty, its turbulence and ferocity during the monsoon, and the intimate daily lives of the people who live along it. He shows the river's powerful religious significance, attested by the millions of Hindus who take part in the ageless pilgrimages and festivals held on its banks. Singh's camera is as fine-tuned as his sensibility. To read his introductions to each area or aspect of the Ganges and then to look at these fascinating and infinitely various photographs is to see that what he notices with his mind he can catch to an amazing degree in a visual image. In these pictures there is more than the conventionally beautiful; in them we are brought face to face with Loknadi, the river of the world.